The Asia Pacific is home to nearly half the world's population, a growing middle class and holds so much opportunity for us all.

I remember reading [ Studs Terkel's] "Working" when it first came out and just finding that very powerful. I was going into community organizing. What stuck was to reveal the sacredness of ordinary people's lives. That everybody has a story. And I think Studs is terrific at drawing out that shimmering quality of people's everyday struggles.

One of the challenges over the last decade is America has done experiments in nation building in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and we've neglected, for example, developing our own economy, our own energy sectors, our own education system. And it's very hard for us to project leadership around the world when we're not doing what we need to do.

No deal means a greater chance of more war in the Middle East.

Historically - when you look at how America has evolved, typically we make progress on race relations in fits and starts. We make some progress, and then there's maybe some slippage.

Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus, which suggests slavery is OK and that eating shellfish is an abomination? Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith?

People need to remember we are the governing party because we have diversity of opinion in our party. We're not pure. We have moderates and we have more progressives.